COVID-19 reduces tourist spending by €7b in 2020

The spending by tourists in Finland was reduced by about EUR seven billion in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to an evaluation carried out by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.

Domestic and foreign tourists spent 9.3 billion euros in Finland in 2020, which was 42% lower than the amount spent in 2019 (EUR 16.1 billion), said the ministry in a press release on Monday.

The figures on Finland’s economic development from last year make this decline apparent and Finland’s gross domestic product is estimated to have fallen by 3% in 2020.

The estimate was prepared by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, in cooperation with Visit Finland, Statistics Finland, the Finnish Hospitality Association MaRa, and the Association of Finnish Travel Agents SMAL.

Travel policies and restrictive measures introduced to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in Finland and other countries had a serious impact on cross-border tourism.

According to preliminary estimates, the coronavirus crisis reduced the amount of money spent by foreign tourists in Finland by 67%, or EUR 3.3 billion, in 2020. Meanwhile, demand for foreign travel by Finnish people fell by 73%, or about EUR 1.7 billion.